I recently had a couple tell me they had noticed that Johannes Hunter did not advertise nor sell factory made diamonds - diamonds which are often referred to as lab created. They were curious to know if it was an ethical or environmental based decision.

Actually, it is neither.

First, if someone chooses to purchase a factory made product instead of a product of Mother Nature, my primary concern is that full disclosure is made to the client. The ethical concern of diamond proceeds being used to finance foreign wars has largely been alleviated by the international tracking process for diamonds known as the Kimberly process.

Second, factory made diamonds do not appear to be kinder to the environment as enormous amounts of energy are required to create a diamond in a factory setting.

That said, I am not comfortable with the current value proposition of factory made diamonds.

When these diamonds first became available, they were priced slightly below a natural diamond of a comparable quality. As more and more producers have entered the marketplace, the prices have dropped proportionally. Competitive forces seem destined to drive prices down to a level relative to the cost to produce the product. We are monitoring these developments closely and will consider adding factory made, also known as lab created, diamonds to our product selection when we see some stabilization of the downward price spiral.